Tony Phillips Dominates at Newcastle GUKPT

22-year-old Londoner Tony Phillips has won the 5^th leg of the 2009 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in Newcastle. He scooped the £47,200 first prize by outlasting a field of 151 competitors in the £1,000 no limit Texas hold’em tournament. Phillips, who last year finished as runner up to Ketul Nathwani in leg 3 of the 2008 tour, is the youngest player to win a GUKPT main event. He defeated Steve Jelinek heads up in the fastest final table in the tour’s history. In the final hand, which took place at just 6.20pm, Phillips held A-J to Jelinek’s pocket nines. A jack on the flop settled the encounter in favour of the youngster.

Phillips was the overnight chip leader after the second day of the tournament and by the time the 9-man final started, he had increased his chip lead even further, commanding over a quarter of the 1.5 million chips in play. Steve Jelinek was in second place when the final started with 150,000 fewer than the chip leader. Norwegian Henning Granstad started the final in third place and maintained that position right up until his exit against the eventual winner. His compatriot Andreas Hoivold looked almost certain to make his third GUKPT final table, but the 2007 EPT Dortmund winner fell just short, exiting in 11^th place when his pocket kings were busted by Jelinek’s pocket tens.

The final started off fast and furiously, with four players biting the felt during the first 30 minutes of play. Phillips and Jelinek took two scalps apiece during this early period of carnage and the pace of the game never slowed. Onlookers were quick to comment that it could all be over before the dinner break and with 20-minutes to go until the roast beef was served, the heads up stage had already been reached, by which time Phillips held a commanding chip lead.

The final table also included Dave Clark, a previous main event winner, but he was eliminated in 4^th place on this occasion. Peter Smithson took 5^th while online tournament pro Laurence Houghton, who was competing in his 2^nd GUKPT main event final table exited in 6^th. Haitao (Colin) Wu, Mohamed Muse and Finn Stewart completed the final table line up, finishing in 7^th, 8^th and 9^th places respectively.

The main tour takes a break now until August when the 6^th leg takes place at the G casino in Luton. However, the action continues next month with the GUKPT Summer Series, which consists of three mini-festivals taking place on consecutive weekends during June in Bolton, Aberdeen and Walsall. Each features a £500 main event plus two support tournaments. Full details of the Summer Series schedule can be found on the tour’s official website at www.gukpt.com. Players can qualify online for the summer series at www.bluesqpoker.com

The Result in Full